Place the celery, onion, carrot, sweet pepper and saute in a bit of olive oil until softened and translucent.

Add to the veggies, the chiles and herbs and mix.

Add the sausage and corn, mixing again.

Salt and pepper to taste

Pour into the bowl with the breads and mix gently.

Add the chicken stock a cup at a time, and stir carefully each time, until it starts to cling together. Too much will make it soggy and mushy and not enough will make it dry. Err on the dry side, you can always add a bit more half way through the baking time if it seems too dry.

Bake at 350° for about 40 minutes, until hot throughout.

SERVES: 10

NOTES: I used to pour all into a casserole and then pour the stock over, but I found it harder to judge the amount that way, and ended up with a pretty soggy dressing. So I suggest you do it in a bowl where you an stir and see a bit better how much you really need.

Take the time to look on the back of any store-bought salad dressing. It will not be a happy thing. Full of stuff you have never heard of and which is in there to stabilize and preserve.

Making a vinaigrette is simple. It’s a math thing. It’s 4:1 except when it’s 3:1. And after a while, you dispense with measuring cups and spoons altogether, because you can feel when it’s right.

A vinaigrette is the most versatile of dressings. You can add and subtract a few dozen things and get a great new taste.

Better yet, a vinaigrette goes over regular salads, roasted veggies, potatoes, meat salads of every kind, and pastas hot and cold. Top a mild fish or a chicken breast. So, listen up to the basics, and note the choices, and become the queen or king of the salad buffet with your wonderful creations.

INGREDIENTS:

3/4 c good quality EVOO (extra-virgin olive oil)

1/4 c vinegar

1 tsp minced shallot

1 clove garlic minced

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

pinch of salt, and several grinds of pepper

INSTRUCTIONS:

Use a whisk, or place all ingredients in a jar with a tight lid and shake it up. You are done.

See? Wasn’t that easy?

Now here are some choices:

For OIL:

olive oil

canola

corn oil

walnut oil

safflower

basically anything but peanut oil which I don’t think would work

For VINEGAR:

white vinegar, or cider

rice wine, white wine or red wine

balsamic

lemon, lime, orange or grapefruit juice

With the more delicate of vinegars such as lemon and rice wine, increase to a 3:1 ratio

OTHER ADDITIONS:

parmesan cheese, grated

chives, parsley, cilantro, marjoram, green onions, minced, lemon balm

dried tomatoes minced, fresh ginger root, hot peppers, minced

smokey paprika, cumin, chili powder, or cayenne

add a tbsp of mayo for a creamy texture, or honey for sweetness

It’s that simple. Just look at what you want to add it to and think of what would taste good.

Make for a single salad by using 3 tsp oil to 1 tsp vinegar, and then cut down on all the rest. After a few times, you will not even think about it, just do it. Obviously make for a crowd by multiplying up.

Note: if you want an herbal” vinaigrette, you might want to put everything in a blender to puree the herbs.

Like this:

Once you try home-made dressing (and I don’t mean mixing some dried gunk with some mayo), you will never go back to the bottled stuff.

It’s simply wonderful, and frankly, you don’t even want to pour it on, it’s so bursting with flavor, a little is enough.

Blue cheese is one of my favorites. It tends to dominate so you don’t have to add a lot of other things. And this is not the time to waste your precious dollars on top end blue cheese either. Save the Maytag and Stilton for more elegant fare. I decent blue cheese will do here.

Most dressings take only minutes to make, and last a good week. So make in amounts that work for you.

INGREDIENTS:

1 c mayonnaise (some use half sour and half mayo, but I prefer only mayo. It maintains the consistency best I find)

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp micro-planed garlic

1 tsp micro-planed onion (basically a bit of onion juice)

1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

1 Tbsp lemon juice

3 oz. blue cheese, crumbled

1/4 c of milk or less

salt to be adjusted after it has set a couple of hours

fresh parsley, chopped if desired

INSTRUCTIONS:

Mix everything together except the milk, salt and parsley.

Add milk tbsp by tbsp until you reach the consistency you wish.

Place in fridge for a couple of hours.

Taste for salt, add more milk if it needs thinning, and add the parsley.

Like this:

Dressing for Thanksgiving is one of those foods that comes down through the family and people tend to cling to those recipes.

But change is fun. Being adventurous is okay in food. You just never know when you find something utterly wonderful.

I was the old school. It was a celery, giblets, bread and sage kinda dressing for me. That’s what I grew up on.

I saw this recipe on GMA a few years back, and decided to give it a go, and well, I really liked it. I tweaked it a bit (since fennel hates me), but basically, it’s the same.

Do try to make this from scratch without benefit of boxed (eww) cornbread or those bags of cubed bread. The bread stales out over night for goodness sake, and if you have left-over cornbread from a chili dinner, well, wrap it and freeze it and you are set to go. Making cornbread is actually easy.

1 TBSP salt (be careful here. I use unsalted stock. If you don’t you may need NO salt.)

2 c mozzarella cheese, cubed

1 c Parmesan cheese, grated

1 c pine nuts

4-5 c chicken stock

INSTRUCTIONS

Saute the bacon until it has rendered it fat. Remove and discard most of the fat drippings.

Saute the sausage, onion and celery until done, slowly and not to burn.

Combine that and all the rest of the ingredients except the broth. Stir until fairly mixed.

Place in a buttered baking dish. Then pour the stock over until when a spoon is pushed down on the top, you can see juice. Don’t over do this. You can always add a bit more if after it sits, it appears too dry.

Place in the fridge if making the evening before, covered. Bring to room temperature before putting it in the oven to heat.

Heat at 350° for about an hour, assuming your baking dish is about 2 inches high. It just needs to heat through.

What Is This?

Just a peek inside my cookbook!. All recipes have been vetted and are on my regular menu list. Copy any you'd like to try. If you post it, please link back here. Comment freely, that's what cooking is all about.

Find It Here

Search

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.